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When Big Blue Got a Glimpse of the Future

Theodore Holm Nelson, the sociologist and philosopher who coined the term “hypertext” and who is something of an Internet Don Quixote, has had a tremendous influence on the computing world.

However, until last night it wasn’t known that Mr. Nelson, the author of the 1974 manifesto “Computer Lib/Dream Machines” — which helped ignite the personal computer revolution — also blew the minds of a team of I.B.M. executives three years before that company entered the PC market.

The story of Mr. Nelson’s encounter with “Big Blue” was recounted on Monday night by William C. Lowe, the I.B.M. executive who oversaw the introduction of the I.B.M. PC in 1981, at a panel discussion at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. I was moderating the event, which was held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 home computer.

Along with Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore, Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, and Adam Chowaniec, the lead designer of the Commodore Amiga, Mr. Lowe retold war stories from an era that brought computing into the mainstream of American life. (Also present in the audience were Al Alcorn, a pioneering Atari engineer, and Lee Felsenstein, the designer of the Sol and the Osborne One computers.)

In 1978, I.B.M. was beginning to design its PC, which was a radical break for a company that had until then resisted open architectures and industry standards. Mr. Lowe invited Mr. Nelson to the company’s offices in Atlanta for a 90-minute presentation.

The resulting slide show, in which Mr. Nelson sketched out a world in which computer users would be able to retrieve information wherever they were, came as a shock to the blue-suited I.B.M. executives, Mr. Lowe said. It gave a hint of the world that the PC would bring, and even though the I.B.M.-ers were getting ready to transform a hobbyist business into one of the world’s major industries, they had no clue of the broader social implications. That would have to wait two decades for the rise of Google and the search engines.

But Mr. Nelson, almost simultaneously with Douglas C. Engelbart, a pioneering SRI International computer scientist, conceived it all first. During the 1960s the two independently began designing the computer world we now think of as the Internet.

As it happens, both men — who are friends — also believe that the commercial world cherry-picked some of their ideas, but missed the big picture.

Mr. Nelson, who now lives in England, continues to explore his original vision for an information system called Xanadu, and Mr. Engelbart, who is based in Silicon Valley, is still at work on his ideas for using computers and networks to augment the human mind.

Both men also remain refreshing counterpoints to the commercialized, venture-capitalized Internet 2.0 that now dominates the Valley’s culture.

Several years ago I bumped into Mr. Nelson at Mr. Engelbart’s 80th birthday party. Without missing a beat and without bothering to say hello, he raised his finger and exclaimed, “I’ve discovered conclusive proof that I invented the Web browser back button!”
Ted, I’m absolutely certain that you did.

I saw a workable personal computer from Burroughs and Xerox in the late summer of 1981. Both companies were instrumental in the formation of P.A.R.C. (Palo Alta Research Center). What we know of the user interface of Apple and Microsoft was stolen from Burroughs and especially Xerox. The software was there in a crude form, but anyone can see that Microsoft and Apple expropriated intellectual property without paying for it.

As for the Internet: Bell Labs, a research division of AT&T did the grunt work of designing networks and the software that worked in concert with the network. Usenet, a commercially available e-mail system, used to belong to DARPANET (Defense Agency Research Project Administration Network), then that morphed into ARPANET. Universities and big companies had e-mail networks if they were Federally funded doing research, in the early Eighties.

Apple did not steal the PARC / Altus interface. Steve Jobs visted PARC, was impressed by what he saw, and licensed the interface. He didn’t pay a whole lot, but that’s Xerox’s problem, not Apple’s. Then again, Xerox did that a lot, i.e develop something cool and drop the ball.

Of course Job’s stole the original idea; his eyes were popping out when he saw it. Let’s see more recent proof: Sony’s walkman was a great hit, fashion comes and goes, then with some high-tech feminine delicate looks, comes out iPod… Still a copy!

iPhone too (not original name either)… applied high-tech to another copied idea!